News: Education Headlines

Woodland Hills charter school recently made an unusual offer to its veteran teachers: We’ll give you $30,000 if you return to the Los Angeles Unified School District before you retire. It wasn’t the teachers that El Camino Real Charter High School wanted to get rid of. It was the cost of their retirement benefits.

California’s largest network of online academies is different: Although the schools are set up like typical charters, records show they’re established and run by Virginia-based K12 Inc., whose claims of parental involvement and independent oversight appear to be a veneer for the moneymaking enterprise.

The court’s unanimous ruling that found teacher tenure is constitutional and doesn’t deprive students of a fair education may not be settled if the state’s highest court decides to review the case, which has ramifications for more than 6 million students and hundreds of thousands of teachers.

Administrators of the Sacramento City Unified School District have discussed a $40 million central kitchen for several years without a concrete plan. Trustee Jessie Ryan said Friday it’s time to move forward.

An Escondido board member who had attended meetings through conference calls since December, returned to a board meeting in person Thursday, after a Vista judge lifted a restraining order against him last month.

On the week state officials and representatives of 95,000 union workers began, about 20 employees from the California School for the Deaf and the California School for the Blind held a lunch break protest Monday.

In separate analyses, three nonprofit student advocacy groups have concluded that most school districts’ explanations of their priorities and annual spending under the state’s new funding law are confusing, inadequate and sometimes contrary to the law’s purpose of directing more resources to underserved students.

Under Robert Schram’s direction, Clovis Unified has become a local leader in the battle to change the face of school lunches. It has developed innovative menu items, involved students in the decision process and kept a sharp eye on emerging food trends.

FCMAT was established in 1992 to serve California’s local educational agencies with a wide array of business needs. Since then, our services have expanded to include the California School Information Services (CSIS), professional development, software development, community colleges and charter schools. Our CBO mentor program and ASB seminars are well-attended. We offer a variety of manuals and other written materials to help guide school districts and their staffs.